Canadian Personal Finance Blog

This past weekend, I got to enjoy an out of town tournament with my daughter and we had a great time as usual, however, there was one incident that marred the weekend a little.

The parents typically get lost easily (I include myself in that group), so we typically convoy to gymnasiums from hotels so we don’t all get lost. I had a small convoy behind me, and just as we came off a parkway in Hamilton, we came to a set of lights. We stopped, the light turned green, I turned left chatted with my passenger, looked in my rear view mirror and my convoy was gone!

That was very strange, but we went on to the gym, and I called the members of the convoy to find out whether they had turned left to go to a Tim Horton’s or the like. No, the car behind me “dropped” it’s transmission as it’s driver put their foot down on the accelerator. My heart sunk when I heard that because that is one of my pet paranoia’s (car breaking down in strange city).

This Dad luckily had roadside assistance, so he got it towed to the dealership, who declared the transmission “Dead on Arrival”, and gave him three options:

1. Replace with brand new transmission
2. Replace with rebuilt transmission
3. Walk away from the van

This Dad wasn’t sure what to do, so he rightly decided to take a rental and figure out what to do and deal with it on Monday. Now over the next 24 hours, the Dad made a plan and decided to go with option (3) and not put good money after bad in this situation. He will find another car, and deal with it, instead of attempting to nurse this old clunker any more.

How the Heck do you Decide?

When do you pull the plug in this situation. This Dad did the right thing, he deliberated, called his wife, discussed it with her, they made a plan and are executing it, but I am always amazed when people can make that decision.

I can look back on decisions I have made and figure out whether they are right or wrong, but only in hindsight, making a BIG decision like, “let’s push the car off the cliff” causes me to go into decision brain freeze. I sit there make lists argue all sides of the decision and then usually don’t decide, or procrastinate. Luckily my mechanic is very honest and makes the decision for me (i.e., “Alan this thing is a death trap and I am not fixing it any more, go get another car”).

How do you decide when it is time to get rid of a car? When is “enough” money spent on a car?

This week ends with the following things sticking in my head:

1. Nothing of great excitement in the Ontario Provincial Budget 2008, other than the fact that it is balanced and there are no new taxes (which I guess is good news). Whoopee?
2. The BCE purchase looks to be ok with the CRTC, but now we need to see if the Teachers’ Union is ok with the conditions placed on the sale.
3. I already gloated about my refund for my taxes, sorry, it’s one of the rare times where I feel like gloating.
4. Canada’s population is now 33,143,600 as of January 1, 2008! That’s kind of cool, we have a larger population than London or New York City, which is a good thing (I think).
5. Server problems continue for this site, so please stay with me, in the words of the PQ, “C’est pas ma faute! C’est la faute du Federal!” (ok that is a Bowser and Blue quote). Sorry Monsieur Klein.

Comments Please!

I find that I get some comments from a few dedicated (or maybe belligerent) readers on most of my posts, however this time, I want to hear from any reader. What do I want to hear?

• What do you like about the stuff I am posting about?
• Are there subjects you want to read more about?
• Topics I maybe don’t touch on that you want to read about?
• Things you don’t really want to read about, and I should drop from my writings?

Wish I had free stuff to give away for this (I am working on that), but I will personally attempt to reply to each comment if you do (as I normally do). It might be on delay, since I am out of town this weekend.

Remember I have spam filters on, so your comments don’t appear right away

Today the CRTC will rule on whether the BCE takeover bid is ok by them today. This could make the stock either leap back up to the purchase price (if the banks involved honour their previous commitment) of $42.50 or if the takeover by the Teachers Pension Fund is turned down, it could drive the stock well below $30.00 a share, since the deal would effectively be dead at that point. Stay Tuned. As a BCE Shareholder I am hoping the CRTC is ok with the takeover bid (as a personal statement).

Child Tax Credit

With my daughter turning 18 this past month, my “Family Allowance” cheque now drops dramatically (to about a 1/3 of what I was getting), which is unfortunate, but understandable too. I am still astounded that I was getting this, but then again, I never complain when money is given to me (please keep that in mind if you have extra cash and you aren’t sure what to do with it, donations to me are always appreciated).

Free Crap

For some odd reason, a few printed book publishers seem to think that it is worth sending me FC (free crap) to see if I might review their books on my web site. As most of you know, I have a reading disorder (i.e. I don’t read much, I listen to books on CD mostly), but I got another free book yesterday. I will attempt to read it and see if it is worth giving away to one of you valued readers, so stay tuned, there might be a contest coming up soon.

Server Issues

Off topic, some folks may have noticed my site has been on and off the past few days. My serving site Dreamhost is having some internal issues, which they assure me will be remedied soon, so I apologize for any issues you may have run into, and I hope you continue on as a valued reader of my scribblings (or tappings or clickings).